Smokey Mountain Rattlesnake Retreat

(album: Surely You Joust - 1986)

Well me and Doris went on vacation
We decided we needed more than recreation
So we enrolled in a Bible camp retreat
I got the directions and we took off
It only took six hours to get completely lost
Way back up in the mountains of east Tennessee

Well it was getting real dark and I was starting to fret
Doris said, look yonder bet that's it
She pointed to the lights to this little church way back in the bush
An old man met us, I said just two
He escorted us down to the very first pew
I said Doris I don't think this is the right place, she just said hush

Well they preached some sermons and sang some songs
Then they preached some more and went on and on
Nearly wore me out I'd had about all I could take
Then they pulled down the shades and things quieted down
This guy next to me punched me said, here past this down
I turned to look and son of a gun he handed me a snake

Oh the night that me and Doris
Went running through the forest
Way back up in the hills of Tennessee
Yeah we started making tracks
When they broke out that diamond back
It scared the devil out of poor old Doris and me

He said take it man don't you believe
I said I believe all right I believe I'll leave
And I reached for Doris but she done fainted away white as a sheet
Now I couldn't pick her up, and I couldn't find the door
And them rattlers were crawling all around the floor
And friends that's when the spirit hit my feet

I started running down the aisles and bouncing off the walls
Like somebody teed off a new golf ball
In a tiled bathroom friends I mean I was moving on
I'd run past Doris every minute or two
Trying to shake her awake her but it wasn't no use
For a while there I thought the Lord had called the poor thing home

Then somebody dropped a big one in her lap
Doris come too and something in her snapped
She grabbed that thing by the tail, commenced swinging it around her head
Then she gave it a crack like LashLaRue
The head came off and sailed across the room
Then she did a tap dance on the rest of them suckers till they was all dead

Well I grabbed her by the hand and we headed for the car
When she hollered to the preacher, I don't know who you are
Or where you came from or how you ever learn how to preach
But let me tell you something you old raggedy cat
You don't know nothing about running a Bible Camp
And me and my husband are on our way to Daytona Beach

Oh the night that me and Doris
Went running through the forest
Way back up in the hills of Tennessee
Yeah we started making tracks
When they broke out that diamond back
It sure scared the devil out of poor old Doris and me

Oh the night that me and Doris
Went running through the forest
Way back up in the hills of Tennessee
Yeah we started making tracks
When they broke out that diamond back
It sure scared the devil out of poor old Doris and me